Battersea to be sold off after court bid

THE owner of Battersea Power Station, the London landmark slated for a £5.5 billion (€6.5bn) redevelopment, was put into administration by a judge in Britain after it failed to repay senior creditors.

Judge Geoffrey Charles Vos granted a request by creditors led by the National Asset Management Agency and Lloyds Banking Group Plc to appoint an administrator to sell the site.

The group will try to recover the entire £502 million owed by the project’s owners by selling the site, two people familiar with the matter said earlier this month.

Ernst & Young was appointed to administer investment units of Battersea Power Station Shareholder Vehicle Ltd, including REO Power Station Ltd, REO Site Assembly Ltd, REO 88 Kirtling St Ltd and REO 8 Brooks Court.

“We came to the conclusion — with the other lenders — that such a move would offer the best means of getting the sales process for the site back on track, and through that moving on with the regeneration of the site,” NAMA spokesman Ray Gordon said.

The 38-acre (15-hectare) site was valued at £500m, developer Real Estate Opportunities (REO) said on October 26. REO was given planning consent a year ago for the redevelopment of the site, which is 3.5km by car from the Houses of Parliament. Existing plans include a commitment to contribute more than £200m toward extending a London Underground line.

The assets of REO, which are in Ireland, aren’t affected by the administration order, the company said in a statement yesterday.

Creditors called in loans to Battersea Power Station Shareholder Vehicle on November 29.

Chelsea Football Club, owned by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, hired developer Almacantar to help it find a place for a new stadium and said one of the options was at the Battersea site.

“After several months of discussions and still no acceptable offers on the table, administration is the only means we have to ensure that a sales process is put back on track,” Lloyd’s spokesman Emile Abu-Shakra said in a statement.

“Without a financially stable owner, the site’s future remains unclear and that’s a situation we want to avoid.”

Battersea Power Station, featured on the cover of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals, was designed by Giles Gilbert-Scott, who also devised the red public telephone box, and built in two stages, according to its website. The plant supplied a fifth of London’s electricity in the early 1950s, according to the Battersea Power Station Community Group website.

“The uncertainty over Battersea Power Station redevelopment has been known for some time,” a spokesman for the London mayor’s office said after creditors called in the REO loans. “We are totally confident that new investors will come forward to take over the Battersea Power Station development.”

Bloomberg